Khalil Gibran Quotes

"One day you will ask me which is more important? my life or yours? I will say mine and you will walk away not knowing that you are my life."

"If you love somebody, let them go, for if they return, they were always yours. And if they don't, they never were."

"Your living is determined not so much by what life brings to you as by the attitude you bring to life; not so much by what happens to you as by the way your mind looks at what happens."

"Trust the dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity."

"But let there be spaces in your togetherness and let the winds of the heavens dance between you. Love one another but make not a bond of love: let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls."

"A friend who is far away is sometimes much nearer than one who is at hand. Is not the mountain far more awe-inspiring and more clearly visible to one passing through the valley than to those who inhabit the mountain?"

"And ever has it been known that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation."

"When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy. When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight."

"Yesterday is but today's memory, and tomorrow is today's dream."

"I have learned silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet, strange, I am ungrateful to those teachers."

"Doubt is a pain too lonely to know that faith is his twin brother."

"In the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures. For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed."

"Faith is an oasis in the heart which will never be reached by the caravan of thinking."

"Wisdom ceases to be wisdom when it becomes too proud to weep, too grave to laugh, and too selfful to seek other than itself."

"Death most resembles a prophet who is without honor in his own land or a poet who is a stranger among his people."

"Advance, and never halt, for advancing is perfection. Advance and do not fear the thorns in the path, for they draw only corrupt blood."

"To understand the heart and mind of a person, look not at what he has already achieved, but at what he aspires to."

"Friendship is always a sweet responsibility, never an opportunity."

"The tears that you spill, the sorrowful, are sweeter than the laughter of snobs and the guffaws of scoffers."

"We choose our joys and sorrows long before we experience them."

"Hallow the body as a temple to comeliness and sanctify the heart as a sacrifice to love; love recompenses the adorers."

"If your heart is a volcano, how shall you expect flowers to bloom?"

"Coming generations will learn equality from poverty, and love from woes."

"Art is a step from what is obvious and well-known toward what is arcane and concealed."

"Zeal is a volcano, the peak of which the grass of indecisiveness does not grow."

"Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself. They came through you but not from you and though they are with you yet they belong not to you."

"When love beckons to you, follow him, Though his ways are hard and steep. And when his wings enfold you yield to him, Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you."

"I have learnt silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange, I am ungrateful to these teachers."

"Life without love is like a tree without blossoms or fruit."

"Life without liberty is like a body without spirit."
"If you reveal your secrets to the wind, you should not blame the wind for revealing them to the trees."

"I love you when you bow in your mosque, kneel in your temple, pray in your church. For you and I are sons of one religion, and it is the spirit."

"The teacher who is indeed wise does not bid you to enter the house of his wisdom but rather leads you to the threshold of your mind."

"Forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair."

"Keep me away from the wisdom which does not cry, the philosophy which does not laugh and the greatness which does not bow before children."

"Love... It surrounds every being and extends slowly to embrace all that shall be."

"Progress lies not in enhancing what is, but in advancing toward what will be."

"The person you consider ignorant and insignificant is the one who came from God, that he might learn bliss from grief and knowledge from gloom."

"You give but little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give."

"There are those who give with joy, and that joy is their reward."

"I wash my hands of those who imagine chattering to be knowledge, silence to be ignorance, and affection to be art."

"Of life's two chief prizes, beauty and truth, I found the first in a loving heart and the second in a laborer's hand."

"Generosity is not giving me that which I need more than you do, but it is giving me that which you need more than I do."

"The eye of a human being is a microscope, which makes the world seem bigger than it really is."

"Sadness is but a wall between two gardens."

"You pray in your distress and in your need; would that you might also pray in the fullness of your joy and in your days of abundance."

"Cast aside those who liken godliness to whimsy and who try to combine their greed for wealth with their desire for a happy afterlife."

"An eye for an eye, and the whole world would be blind."

"Nor shall derision prove powerful against those who listen to humanity or those who follow in the footsteps of divinity, for they shall live forever. Forever."

"Safeguarding the rights of others is the most noble and beautiful end of a human being."

"Yesterday we obeyed kings and bent our necks before emperors. But today we kneel only to truth, follow only beauty, and obey only love."

"Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding."

"What is this world that is hastening me toward I know not what, viewing me with contempt?"

"The just is close to the people's heart, but the merciful is close to the heart of God."

"Knowledge of the self is the mother of all knowledge. So it is incumbent on me to know my self, to know it completely, to know its minutiae, its characteristics, its subtleties, and its very atoms."

"Poverty is a veil that obscures the face of greatness. An appeal is a mask covering the face of tribulation."

"If my survival caused another to perish, then death would be sweeter and more beloved."
"Exaggeration is truth that has lost its temper."

"You have your ideology and I have mine."

"Generosity is giving more than you can, and pride is taking less than you need."

"All our words are but crumbs that fall down from the feast of the mind."

"I existed from all eternity and, behold, I am here; and I shall exist till the end of time, for my being has no end."

"Most people who ask for advice from others have already resolved to act as it pleases them."

"The most pitiful among men is he who turns his dreams into silver and gold."

"All that spirits desire, spirits attain."

"Where is the justice of political power if it... marches upon neighboring lands, killing thousands and pillaging the very hills?"

"Time has been transformed, and we have changed; it has advanced and set us in motion; it has unveiled its face, inspiring us with bewilderment and exhilaration."

"A poet is a bird of unearthly excellence, who escapes from his celestial realm arrives in this world warbling. If we do not cherish him, he spreads his wings and flies back into his homeland."

"Perplexity is the beginning of knowledge."

"What difference is there between us, save a restless dream that follows my soul but fears to come near you?"

"Would that I were a dry well, and that the people tossed stones into me, for that would be easier than to be a spring of flowing water that the thirsty pass by, and from which they avoid drinking."

"Wisdom stands at the turn in the road and calls upon us publicly, but we consider it false and despise its adherents."

"The obvious is that which is never seen until someone expresses it simply."

"You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth."

"Many a doctrine is like a window pane. We see truth through it but it divides us from truth."

"Pain and foolishness lead to great bliss and complete knowledge, for Eternal Wisdom created nothing under the sun in vain."

"Rebellion without truth is like spring in a bleak, arid desert."

"Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror."

"Work is love made visible. And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy."

"Poetry is a deal of joy and pain and wonder, with a dash of the dictionary."

"When you work you are a flute through whose heart the whispering of the hours turns to music. Which of you would be a reed, dumb and silent, when all else sings together in unison?"

"For what is it to die, but to stand in the sun and melt into the wind?"

"Knowledge cultivates your seeds and does not sow in you seeds."

"What do the nationalists say about killers punishing murderers and thieves sentencing looters?"

"We were a silent, hidden thought in the folds of oblivion, and we have become a voice that causes the heavens to tremble."

"If the grandfather of the grandfather of Jesus had known what was hidden within him, he would have stood humble and awe-struck before his soul."

"And the self-same well from which your laughter rises was often-times filled with your tears."

"Where is the justice of political power if it executes the murderer and jails the plunderer, and then itself marches upon neighboring lands, killing thousands and pillaging the very hills?"

"Where is the justice of political power if it executes the murderer and jails the plunderer?"

"They consider me to have sharp and penetrating vision because I see them through the mesh of a sieve."